Aforementioned Unexpected Stop in Willow

We were hesitant to post this particular exploit until its circumstances had been explained in full to our mothers. Bebe and Kathy were much less excited about it than they would have been if they had seen the incident with their own eyes, which was surely a good thing. 

The weather has been curious, even to Alaskans, ever since we got here. The day we arrived, we heard about a "heat wave" on the radio...it was negative 15 degrees. It had been in the negative 30s in the days before, and within four days of our arrival, temps were in the mid 40s, a 70 degree change in a week's time. That made things messy--roads that were frozen and had a few inches of snow on top melted during the day and froze up again at night. The day we drove to Talkeetna to see Denali was the warmest day, and the roads were dry from Anchorage to Wasilla. After that (from Wasilla, through Willow, Houston, and Talkeetna) they were slushy, and the weather lady was calling for freezing temps that night. We said to ourselves that as long as we got back to Wasilla by 5 pm, we would be fine. 

We were just motoring along the two-lane, twenty minutes from Wasilla, listening to George Stanford and Ani Difranco broadcasted from Mountain Stage on KTNA 88.9, enjoying the reflective pink glow of the setting sun on the snow. At 4:30 pm, during a small argument pertaining to the fact that Sarah had left her retainer at home when she was supposed to be wearing it all day (Jim can't get enough of that lisp), at about 55 mph, we hit a good stretch of African-American ice (when Sarah told Charley about the "black ice," he was offended, and suggested this amended term). Sarah tells a wildly different version of the story than Jim from this point, as she sees every situation either through the lens of a camera or on the written page, but the general consensus is that for some time, we skidded across the ice at the same speed we had been driving, veering into oncoming traffic (or where such traffic would have been but for Providence), then spinning a complete 360 degrees at the same speed and ending up skidding in reverse in our lane again, still at what felt like the same speed we had been driving. 

When we first began to lose control, Jim said calmly, "okay" (with the attitude that this was a situation of which he would gain control). By the time we began to spin, Sarah looked over at Jim and saw a wild look in his eyes, and a bit amped-up, he said again, almost asking "o-kay?" After a few seconds in reverse, we spun around again and were headed in reverse off the edge (of the unknown). This time, Jim looked Sarah dead in the eyes and, with a knowing look of there being nothing in the world that could be done to change the circumstance, said concedingly, "oka-ay!" The crucial question in our minds was whether we were to be airborne or wrapped around a tree. It must be said that Jim operated throughout with great mastery of the vehicle and an astounding sense of calm.

Our question was quickly answered by the (quite graceful) instant halting of the car, which had backed, with quite a thud, into a very deep snowbank off the edge of the road. Big Dale Sandstrom (of Sandstrom & Sons Inc., Wasilla--Specializing in Piledriving) was happening by on his way home and graciously stopped to give us a ride back to the station in Willow.

We are thankful that this happened for several reasons, not the least of which was our getting to know Mr. Sandstrom the saint, Deb the cashier at the station (who fed us deep-fried halibut she caught the day before, and, in between long drags on that Misty cigarette, told us the story of her husband's recent bear hunt in which he shot a female grizzly who "thank God her nipples was all dried up--couldn't have no cubs no more--we's havin' her rugged and skull bleached--got it at the house right now"), and Tom the tow-truck man, who told us to "quit fussin'" over making him come all the way from home to dig us out of a ditch.